TGIF

Well I meant to end the year talking about how we are all going into the world eyes open. But then I got in a car crash with my girlfriend and decided that I should try and find sociology in that because it's fresh. That also why this post is late.

I want to talk about the crowd dynamics at a crash and maybe point at what sociologically imaginations they are? The main thing I noticed, although I was TERRIBLY dazed, was that the main reaction was annoyance. And that was disappointing because someone could've been hurt. So I guess not everyone presumes all crashes are bad crashes, but all crashes are just more stuff in my way. It's atrociously selfish and I kinda wish more sociologically mindful people had been present instead of the one man who called 911 for us. So yeah, that's my little rant. Next time you drive by a crash I don't even care if you're looking out of morbid curiosity, but don't get annoyed that the potential loss of human life kept you in traffic for an extra 15 minutes. Who knows, that 15 minutes could save YOUR life. Enjoy your weekend.

Genetics and Sports, eh?

I think the argument is entirely false because it refuses to acknowledge the important factor of genes: the population. To call this nurture is a mistake because it is really the environment that dictated the genetic mutation(if there is one). Genes exist for sex. The better the genes, the more likely they are to spread and what not, so if a population finds sports a desireable characteristic, eventually yes, genes will change to accomodate that. To say sports are too new for this is a mistake because sports, in some form or another, for a VERY long time(The Greeks and Chinese were playing in the B.C., that's long enough for evolution to take an itty bitty tinsy winsy step).

Nonetheless, I dislike that argument because it makes it appear as though physical strength or speed is only applicable to the sport and thus is was evolved into us. Speed and strength are good for hunting, which is closer on the timeline of some races then of others because it still exists in some areas. Thus, I think sports are a misplaced observation. They are a way to socialize and exhibit strength and such, but not the direct and implied application and I think the more desireable athleticism becomes in a population, the more risk for degeneration the genes face because one can't evolve to kick a ball better, but if people start kicking balls instead of killing elephants for hundreds and thousands of years, the homo sapien becomes the most worthless creature out there because it can't hunt! It's just very good at kicking balls! This is an exaggeration and I'm no Darwin, but I still think sports and weight-training are killing humanity in that they serve to create a human on paper. So you can bench 300 lbs, if a tree falls on you can you lift that? Your mile is 5 minutes, can you chase down a rabbit? That sort of thing has generated my disdain for athletics: it's all in theory and it's insulting to humans as animals. I guess I need to accept we fell off the evolutionary curve a while ago with the introduction of money being important for survival... But I refuse to do so! Any comments are welcome, but my logic is flawed and I am too exasperated to defend it so poke holes knowing you will be met with no resistance. Have a delicious afternoon!

La nostra Renata!

Class strikes again! B&N is having a classical music/opera CD sale until June 2nd, buy two get the third free. It's a good deal, there's a nice recording of Carmen and two Anna Netrebko CDs that are brilliant. So get in there and expand your boundaries! In any case, opera and classical music go with tea, don't they? And as you can expect from my last rant, I am no opera poseur, though I don't want to call myself an expert. So I bought seven complete operas by one of the greatest sopranos who ever lived(and she was Italian), Renata Tebaldi. Her Violetta is incredible, and that's all I've listened to so far, but the price of the set was the remarkable thing. $28 for seven complete operas, the recordings are decent, and there is a small biography of la nostra Renata inside as well. I call her that out of respect... So $28, I wondered why opera is always considered some sort of weird upper-class affair when it was so affordable. My co-worker who helped me make the purchase seemed to be surprised I was buying opera(undoubtedly because I don't ooze gajillionaire), but when I pointed out the price they came back to reason. In any case, I want to point out that maybe not every class-exclusive thing is so class-exclusive and that the sociological mindset is still so firmly made about things like opera that even when it costs less than a pair of jeans at Abercrombie and Bitc... Fitch rather, no one is really changing their opinion. So here's to slaying a sociological mindset. Let's all buy affordable opera and listen to it on our four year old CD players! That'll teach em. Comments welcome, have a good night!

Tea

Watching the movie on classism, I'm not entirely sure how to feel. I don't hate whatever Mr. My Name is WASP the 31st for starters. I like the plumber and I think Tammy is just at a loss, though. For this I want to say classism effects the extreme ends of the spectrum more than those in the middle. For example Tammy always feels her son is betraying her and the class they belong to and Mr. WASP blondie the 19th thinks anything vulgar is blue-collar, beneath him, and horrible. However, despite the occasional outliar like the guy in the bar. People who are in between poverty and riches don't seem to be so against each other. A suburbanite officeman and a well-off electrician for example, kind of like that neighborhood the fireman is in, get along. Again I think this is our culture of extremes coming through where everyone puts too much value on certain things or exagerrates in their thought processes, but that can't be changed.

So Ohio.The state in which my grandmother grew up on a farm. There is also a town called Batavia in Ohio which I would call a working class town. I stopped off there and just felt like I didn't belong, I happened to be in a suit(we were vising colleges), but the people tended to be distant and indifferent to me. At the Steak and Shake I bought food at, there was a certain alienation I felt(or perhaps thought I did?)and it was awkward. Other people of the same area were nearby and having a lovely meal and chatting up the waitress and everything, but when I politely called her over for a glass of water, she became a zombie. It was eerie. And I think that even though I wasn't raised classist, the people in Batavia put a certain sense of class in me that wasn't there before. Then for the other end, I visited Duke University. Now I hate to black-list a school, but if it was built in the 1920's to look like a gothic castle, there is a pretention issue. The people there were new money. And I can't guarantee that, but new money is a class for me. It's people who don't know what to do with their wealth so they flaunt it and make complete idiots out of themselves. They would make Rockefeller cry, basically, because they use money as an excuse to be materialistic and insincere. So I don't doubt that some "working class" people come off as more genuine, because the class a little above them is filled with idiots. However, I think if you jump that gap there would be some level-headed old money people who would be genuine, live well, and not have a toilet lined with gold. So Duke was fake like that and I didn't feel right there either. I didn't feel poor, and since I was looking at the school that wasn't the assumption anyone made, but I did feel above the pettiness. And that was awkward too. I suppose a frat-boy tour guide jaded me a bit though... I am rather prejudice to that social group and he did nothing to allay my pre-existing opinion of him(When a worried mother asked about the alcohol situation, his answer was "This is college, you know?"). Duke and Batavia... I almost think Tammy and Mr. Winston Fairgates Leopold the 4th would be more pleasant to spend a day with than the people stuck in the "middle" And that's a complete contradiction to what I already said! Intriguig.

I would also like to touch on tea- my vice. Apparently, that's a classist thing. And I won't deny it evokes imagery of the British aristocracy or something, but I want to ask why. If anyting, tea has made me less classist. I have studied pretty much every variety, the culture around it in Europe and Asia, and feel it has taken me around the world. For example I was able to talk to a Chinese immigrant a month or so ago about the white tea they grow in Fujian and all about Eastern medicine. I know how to make my own chai, courtesy of my girlfriend's Indian roots, and I've got a taste for the sweet tea of the south as well. I think it's narrow minded to call tea classist and only think of it with crumpets then. Even green tea is becoming a suburban phenomenon because it's so much healthier than coffee(which is complete BLASPHEMY, because I love coffee from a culinary standpoint as well and can't stand when people make misconceptions about it). But green tea is an Asian product for the most part and while everyone can say they enjoy Snapple green tea with artificial sweetners, I would be hard-pressed to find a fellow Gen-mai cha lover in Stevenson or anyone who even knows the difference between a Sencha and a Bancha! It's ridiculous and I'm not pointing fingers at all, but tea is close to my heart and I think it is a good example of classism. I found some funny stuff on youtube. The first is more explicitly languaged and makes some of those generalizations I loathe, but the second makes less of those generalizations, is less vulgar, and is just funny(especially if you know your black teas!).

First(did I mention it has typical hip-hop mysogny?): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNMdUAyHxuU&feature=related
Second: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA&NR=1

So enjoy the videos, feel free to comment. I'm off for a mug of darjeeling with lemon and if anyone wants any tea-advice, I am your guru. Have a good night!

Violence(again)

Well of all the norms we have covered in class, violence seems to be the most persistent. I won't go philosophy and ask if men are inherently beastly(though in my opinion such is the case to some degree), but I do wonder why it is so entertaining and I present various options.

Firstly, is the factor of watching someone else suffer and knowing it's not you. So you can go fulfill that biological obligation to procreate and all is well. Now this explains why the news portrays horror stories in the light they do, the sensationalization of it all, albeit ghastly, helps people feel good about themselves in some warped and base dimension. This is a pending theory and doesn't explain the glamour in our culture. This glamour I refuse to pin to masculinity or something of that sort as, my apologies to Freud, I do not believe all human beings feel the need to justify themselves with the phallus.

Continuing right along, maybe it's just something new and fresh at the moment. Whereas the electric bulb was once a spectacle, the fantastical imaginary weapons men create are rather interesting. Here we have a power struggle and man tries to become his own god, per usual, by governing life and death. Menacing, eh? However this line of thought says violence will one day diminish as a cultural flame and we moths will gravitate to something else. Hopeful, yes. Realistic? Again, pending.

A final reason is nationalism, that OTHER sociological imagination that says "You're from this country be proud of it... and kill anyone that would stand to try and make you feel small for that pride." Now this route explains why comic book villains, when put against American heroes, are inevitably our rivals or enemies. Boris and Natasha? Today it would be something middle-eastern most likely, to rouse national sentiment. Now this explains why conflict is always cropping up and why the conflicts of our heroes are our own. But here the flaw is does life copy art or does art copy life? In any case, when you step back, the entire thing becomes utterly ridiculous.

So I apologize for the late post again, but nothing this week in class struck me as amazing. Locking oneself in prison seemed ridiculous and the distribution of wealth in this country is really no news to me. Nonetheless, seeing Iron Man at the request of my girlfriend(gender roles? I never read comic books, she did, we're both outliars in a sample set I guess), did inspire a few thoughts. It's a predictable movie of course, but not bad and very interesting to view sociologically if you feel you can muster it. Otherwise watch it for what it is and it IS entertaining as a light show with plenty of explosions and such, but no blood. And so I touch upon my final point: the redemption of man! Intense. The lack of blood shows we are not so desensitized that realistic violence is amusing, it is still the stuff of horror and while there may be sadists walking among us, gratuitous gore is not what one looks forward to seeing. With this I ask us all to maybe even turn away from bruises, bombs, guns, grenades, and all other indirect signs of violence, but not tonight. I need some more tea. Comments are welcome as always, enjoy your weekend!

Sociology and the Squirrel

Ah college. I won't begin on the cultural norm we've formed that has turned college into HS the sequel(as it irks me too much to keep focus), but I would like to highlight some sociological experiences I had on my college visits over sprin break! Which are just now coming to mind to blog about!

In any case, I studied two things at every college I visited: The quads and the squirrels. On the quadrangles, I payed attention to how many students, what they were up to, etc., while trying to stay sociologically mindful, and I noticed essentially what I notice in a Stevenson common: Like goes with like except sometimes. Now this was interesting because it left other factors up to imagination about why who was with who. Clearly athletes are with athletes, but the dork and the blonde don't seem like a pre-made combination. Nor do the punk rocker and the prep. And then the stereotypes lift! I thought that was interesting at least, to see that personality does play more of a factor than even defining roles at times because while you may carry yourself as a prep, that might not be your master status; and that master status is what brings you your friends. I also kinda did a classroom map of the quad and found that people looking for quiet places to read tended to sit under tree or near buildings, away from all the hub bub that was frisby. These people smiled and all, but seemed less gregarious than the frisbiers who greeted me at every tour and seemed excited to just be playing frisby. Here again the crowd dynamic and the master status bit played a role and I could carry my chin a little higher knowing that was part of the explanation. Now for the squirrels, it was more of a search into the atmosphere of the college, biological and otherwise. Since I don't know the sociology of squirrels, I only watched one at a time, but I looked at things like a healthy coat, healthy weight, no hyper-sensitivty to humans, shiny eyes, etc. Shocking, some schools had no squirrels. These were schools I couldn't imagine attending because CLEARLY something somewhere was off if they could chase squirrels away. Other schools had really fat squirrels with bad fur which hints at maybe dangerous pesticides or unhealthy food/food refuse. The squirrels that seemed healthiest to me were digging up acorns in the gardens, running around trees to play(with me or other squirrels), and seemed happier. Inevitably, squirrels equalled students. Students at schools sans squirrels seemed fake and unnatural, students with unhealthy squirrels seemed cramped or bored and restless, and healthy squirrels meant smiles all around and a happy bounce in the students step from class to class. Long live empiricism!

As a sidenote and partial reply to the UnTV and the undisputed culture of movement we always cover in class, I have returned to my walking meditation now that the weather is more climate. Any of you are welcome to join me one afternoon if you find my neighborhood, it's a very relaxing activity. One doesn't really do it to pay attention to things, in my practice, or to center ones thoughts, but just to breath. And breathing is alot of what gets harder in our world with all the stress we put on ourselves. The basic practice is this: walk at a comfortable pace and inhale deeply, counting how many steps you take as you inhale and take the same number as you exhale. Then slow down your steps, but maintain your breathing and the count. Between 3 and 5 steps is a good number as it is a veeery slooow stroooll and one can really feel a disconnection from the culture of intense motion. Losing this pace is easy, but it's not too hard to keep it either. The trick is to pay attention to things transiently. Look at a rose and keep walking and when the rose is gone you just focus on breathing again. No more rose. It's really a "see what you can see" thing I suppose. So just slow down, and breath. And watch what happens. If at first you're bored that's fine, but eventually it should be a very refreshing experience. So there's squirrels and something to do this spring. Happy walking, comments welcome, and I bid you good night!

Ah MTV

Well just as we leave the unit on gender and masculinity I come across the show "Made" on MTV. Brilliant, no? In any case, the show is rather disgusting. It has people ostracized from their school society trying desperately to conform in the hopes they will be happier. Now the episode I watched the fellow literally had no friends, which was sad enough, and he was bullied, so his desire to change was understandable. But if the situation was less clear? If someone was just a nobody and they felt they NEEDED to fit in to be a somebody? Isn't that everything people(halfheartedly mostly...)say is wrong? This in mind, I have decided to hypothesize his masculinity felt threatened and thusly, to affirm it to himself, he decided to leave his own niche in search of a more "normal" one. I didn't watch the episode all the way through, but it was rather tragic "My life is boring" blah blah "no one loves me" blah blah "I'LL BE A ROCK STAR!" blah blah "guitar is hard" the end.

I also was speaking with some Europhiles recently and the armpits of European women of course became a topic of discussion. In American culture, somehow, that's just wrong. Maybe the Puritan values of cleaniness in the extreme or something weird, I don't know. To us it's a very feminine/beatnik/lesbian thing to do and of course, women who make it known they abide by similar hygeine, are ostracized for it. So feminism, woot sorta, not where I care to go with this, but fun sociological imagination again.

Teens versus parents? That sort of thing bores me, especially since my workplace I AM with people doing it for a career, I DO have the opportunity to go up the ranks, and I AM surrounded by all sorts of really interesting adult figures. My parents and I don't get along all the time, but it tends to be ideological and it's rarely "Oh don't drink" or "You're so irresponsible" etc. So while maybe teens are in a tighter spot today than yesteryear? Good for them, I take the liberty to speak for my peers when I say there's no use comparing us to the past when you have no intention and no ability to turn back time. Accept the situation today, remedy that, and stop looking for solutions in a past that was also inherently flawed. In short, here's approval to the dork, the teen, and the strong woman(as much as America may hate her...). Carry on, make mistakes, get over em, and if you make it to adulthood you did SOMETHING right regardless of whether you played sports or played the tuba. Not much openendedness here for which I apologize, but thoughts are welcome as always. Good night!